


Centripetal

by handschuhmaus



Series: Our Only Actions of Significance [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (the drama is not for science though), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Drama, Family Fluff, For Science!, Gen, Gratuitous Earth foods and animals, Mathematics, Sith hugs, but it's slightly mystical PI level stuff not super intense or threatening, home-grown lightsaber crystals, one part interpersonal drama regarding, one part misdirection and plotting at a math conference, one part mom and son cuteness, pretend tea party, there's some sorta stalking behavior on the part of the Sith, whether small son is gonna be a given type of Force-user
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 10:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: The honor of being a Jedi youngling ripped away from his parents? The traumas and ingrained cruelty of being pruned into a Sith ideal? Tema Damask decides neither of those are right for her little son Hego, and the only sensible course of action is a complex escape and maybe some trainingshepicked up...(Guest starring Caar Damask and Rugess Nome (aka Darth Tenebrous) plus a handful of OCs)Based on the prompt:Plagueis’s mother (please name her) decides that she’d rather him not be either a Sith or a Jedi, so runs off with him and trains him herself!  Fun family time with lightsabers ensues! With guest appearance by disappointed Tenebrous!From the Jedifest Alien April treat round.





	Centripetal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unspeakablehorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unspeakablehorror/gifts).



> (...this contains more math conference than anyone probably expected from the prompt. It doesn't really contain notable amounts of Caar/Tema content, but the nature of their relationship seems to warrant a / tag rather than an & one.)

"And in local news tonight, our reporter, yours truly, caught this clip of a reluctant model who wandered into the wrong side of the Alderaani Planetary Convention Center. The great Core fashion houses are having their semi annual show in the North, South, and West wings, folks, _not_ the East wing."

"Lorton," the hostess cut in, "not to derail the story, but isn't it possible that your so-called model could have been attending the other event?"

"Dressed like this?" Lorton cued the clip of an impeccably dressed Muun, in elaborate (and face-obscuring) makeup, riding up an escalator with a child at her side, and trying to block her face from the camera with an extended hand. 

_No respect for the privacy of citizens!_ Tema (Damask, but she would do her best to drop that soon) thought furiously, looking at the footage of herself in the beautiful blue dress she'd rented in a convoluted attempt to disappear later.

"It's not impossible that someone would attend the Mid Rim Interplanetery Mathematics Summit, the second largest mathematical gathering in the galaxy, like that, Lorton."

"No, it's the third," Uun'iaq interjected, placing a cup of poor quality hotel tea in front of Tema on the coffee table.

"Must be miserable people, those mathematicians," Lorton interjected. "Doing numbers all day every day, the most frustrating and boring of activities."

"If you don't shut up, you're going to get booted off the show for making offensive remarks," the hostess, whose name Tema didn't know, informed him in a stage whisper.

Uun'iaq muted the broadcast, and Tema asked quietly, "Am I going to cause trouble for MRAM?"

"I wouldn't think so," the Pau'un mathematician answered her. "It's not your fault they are intrusive and make insulting comments.

"Mind, Nome knows me well enough--" Tema sighed and looked over at Hego, who was playing quietly with Uun'iaq's tiling shapes--apparently filling in an area of the carpet with octagons and squares. "It's not inconceivable he'd think of my going to a maths conference. He may even be a member of the Mid Rim Association of Mathematicians." And she _had_ gone, because she had other friends there...who unfortunately still mostly knew Nome or else were also Muuns and didn't see as she had a good reason for leaving Caar Damask.

It was not the case that Rugess Nome, a ship architect, was such a luminary in the mathematical community that he was known to almost all--it was simply that Tema had met him in a maths class, and for that reason most of the mathematicians she knew were either fellow Muuns, other friends of his, or both. The problem presenting itself was near universal to her sphere of contacts, though--who did she know, _not through Nome,_ who was not going to denounce her leaving Caar?

Uun'iaq she had met at the same time, but as the Pau'un had experience leaving her own society and was not friendly with Nome, she seemed an appropriate resource in this flight.

* * *

It began a week and a half ago, when Caar had, perfectly casually and without malicious intent, mentioned that the upcoming pediatrics appointment for their son would be part of a Jedi testing campaign, to take in any appropriate children. "Seems there aren't enough Muun Jedi," he commented towards the end of the news. "I didn't get tested as a kid, myself, but apparently I would have been a candidate if they'd known," he pondered.

Tema had tried not to let on that she was having an anxiety attack at the news. It was true that she had had every intention of allowing Rugess to train their more potent child (given Bith and Muun were not very compatible genetically) but Tenebrous was a family friend and nearly an uncle to Hego. Like the truest brother she could ever choose, odd as that made her abandoned notion of raising their kid together. He was not the supposedly benevolent knights who patrolled the galaxy, but also ripped malleable children from their homes that they might instruct them in their particular attitudes towards the Force without any objections. Jedi were not allowed to retain attachments, that was relatively well known.

"You would give up our child, Caar?" she had asked in a choked voice.

And he had replied: "To be a Jedi? Tema, my wife, it would be a great honor."

"He is four years old," she pointed out. "Four. He is a child, and our child."

Caar looked at her curiously, much as Rugess did those who were not in his circle, and said "Life gives and life takes away. I am sure your son would be a great Jedi, Tema." He proceeded up the three steps to the hall where his study was, thereby ending the conversation.

_Would be a great Sith, more like._ she thought angrily, and then noticed what their son was doing in the next room. 

"Hego-- Hego, no, we do not torture small animals, not even vermin," she instructed her son weakly.

"But Mama--" he protested softly, and then abruptly let the no doubt injured grain-mouse go, (and where would it go, in the house? She ought to notify the droids.) and reached up for a hug. Rugess had suggested she be sparing in her affection-- _it is not good for Force sensitives to bear strong attachments, Tema. We are frequently called upon to do things lesser beings would not think of doing, and such ties may bind or snap under those circumstances._

What was she raising her son to be?

"Mama?" Hego asked again, tugging at her sleeve.

"Yes, my sweet boy, yes." She picked him up and held him closely, murmuring those meaningless words.

"Papa says I'm getting too big to be called that," Hego protested, but buried his face in her shoulder anyway.

Why had she--had they chosen Caar, anyway? He was wealthy, and had a high midichlorean count, and he was not harsh towards her or her son, but... Caar Damask had been raised to believe you could get nowhere without stepping on someone's toes, even if they were your nearest and dearest, so you might as well minimize the impact, but also get everyone used to it. He did not like the notion that his son with his codecil wife was a "mama's boy", coddled such that he might object to things which inconvenienced her. 

Was there no middle ground between Caar's bland, stoic, conventional money-chasing, and Tenebrous's fiery heresies? It was on account of the latter that she may have let Hego get the impression that torturing animals was acceptable...

* * *

Despite the dress incident going slightly more public than intended, she still tried hard again the next day, firmly forbidding her inner turmoil and annoyance with the paparazzi (who were in fact there for the fashion show; Alderaan's majority human population did not, on average, display enthusiasm for maths) from showing on her face. She wore entirely conventional garments, a scarf over her head, large tinted glasses, and held Hego's hand firmly. He would be mystified and even bored, but there were several things she needed to collect or arrange.

The geometers' session this morning promised a talk by one of her inevitably shadier acquaintances, Sanka of Nar Shaada Research Institute. Tema seated herself and Hego at the back of the room in front of Sanka (sometimes convention centers were not accommodating of non-human forms. Certainly the chairs were not ideal for Muun geometry), and listened to a talk on supersolids in the sixth dimension. A small satin pouch, embroidered with the net of an octahedron, dropped into the empty chair beside her, as Sanka went to the podium to gave her own talk on waves in different dimensions. Hego was quietly clicking a cube puzzle Uun'iaq had got him, paying little attention to the speech, which was going slightly beyond Tema's own understanding. She patted her son's shoulder thoughtfully and he snuggled into her side. 

Sanka, being a Hutt, did not have an especially mellifluous voice when speaking Basic. Tema nonetheless gambled on everyone paying enough attention, or at least being polite enough, to overlook her checking the bag's contents and pocketing it. The record would state (and the only thing Caar would be able to uncover was) that his wife had gambled away her shopping allowance in a private game and only _then_ had the credits been transformed into a ship title, keys, and untraceable gems. Alright, so actually the ship would be something of a (strange) loan from Sanka, but that could be settled, when Hego wasn't in danger from people who wished to take him and use him for their own purposes.

"Clap!" she commanded Hego in a stage whisper, as Sanka finished, and Tema gave her own most thorough applause within the limits of convention etiquette. It was not entirely acting that she consulted the event itinerary and decided to move to a session on number theory. Uun'iaq had a friend who had a friend in this session, a young and bored Coruscanti who would give her further input on the travel itinerary and escape plan she had passed along.

The talk that was set to come next had been cancelled, though. "Madame Damask?" a human asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes?" Tema asked. The human had dyed their hair in a rainbow of brilliant shades and Hego was gawking at the colors.

"I figured you'd want to reference the info, and we might not have time to talk, so I put it on this." A temp-chip, easily destroyed but fairly durable in the short term, dropped into Tema's hand. "You're doing well thinking of Thalassia as an ultimate destination. There are a few towns full of migrants of all sorts and you won't be noticed. It's also relatively lawless, but pretty peaceful all the same. And I can pull off the decoy you requested easily."

"Thank you so much," Tema acknowledged. 

"No, it was an interesting problem--well, I mean, I tend to think of things as problems, I don't mean it was--yeah..." 

They stayed for the next two talks in the session, and then Hego was getting fidgety, and Tema figured it was time to walk, eat, and meet up with a fourth helper in the marketplace.

No one, least of all Nome, would expect Madame Damask to have an appointment with a Gungun who instructed secondary school students; Naboo was a backwater, and the Gunguns generally attracted attention only from more eccentric anthropologists (which she certainly was not). But meet they did, in front of a "Learn Statistics on Malastare!" table for exchange programs (the attendant's attention was fixed on a podrace displayed on xer portable holoprojector). She thanked the Force for that notable Naboo provinciality, though, that the distant planet would even consider having banks without any IGBC input. That was why she'd used Uun'iaq's professional contacts to hire Master Fome TaGree for an errand. All the same, it was going to be damned inconvenient having an account there as an off-worker...

He was obsequious but fairly discrete, apart from shaking Hego's small hand vigorously. She gave him an order actionable only by banks to open her an account, entirely divorced from the IGBC, and an authorization to act as her proxy on this matter.

After finding some lunch, the two Muuns tracked down their new ship and departed.

* * *

Caar Damask was not happy about his missing codecil wife and small son, but he was not exactly angry, either. He was having some regrets, though. Perhaps his ready acceptance of the Jedi had been what scared Tema off. But if so--they were Muuns, after all. They could lawyer up. Could ask why it was necessary to test their son in particular. Perhaps the Jedi ought to look first at some of the orphanages on Muunilinst instead of trying children who were happy in their families on Mygeeto... 

And if Tema didn't contact him in a matter of days or weeks, he'd start looking for her and the boy...

* * *

It was a complicated flight away from Alderaan, flitting to this world and that, spending 36 hours on Dantooine and touring a luxury apartment complex with the intention of leaving a false lead. But it finally ended, and the two, mother and small son, bedded down together in a small house she had rented.

"Mama, why are we here?" Hego asked, at their first breakfast together in the new place. It was a slightly dismal little industrial town on Thalassia, the dwellings extruded identically to a thousand other buildings in this system alone.

"Hego, my dearest boy, there were people who were going to come around and take you from me, because they think they need to teach you instead of me."

"Mama, Father says school is nothing to be afraid of," he reported, so serious for such a small child, and took a spoonful of cornflakes.

"No, not school, dearest. The--" she sighed and decided to give him the truth; she had no interest in Hego growing up admiring the Jedi. "--Jedi would like to take you away from me, from your home, and never let you...never let you love anyone, and force you to make people do what the Jedi want them to."

He stuck out his tongue, which still had bits of partially chewed cornflake on it. "I don't wanna leave you, Mama. Is Father gonna come too?"

She wasn't sure how to explain that. "Well, Caar, your father, probably won't. He's very busy with his work, and his other family, and he--sometimes, Hego, it's harder for men to understand that children shouldn't be forced to leave their homes. The Jedi are supposed to be acting in the best interest of the galaxy, so..."

"Father thinks it would be an adventure," Hego mused, splattering milk onto the table as he thoughtfully played with his spoon.

"And I suppose it would, but Hego--in a while, in a few weeks maybe or months at most, we can visit Father. The Jedi won't let you come back and see me, and I'd miss you horribly."

"Me too, Mama," he said, and ate a piece of the fruit she'd given him. 

There was enough of a pause that she ate and swallowed a bite of cornflakes before Hego piped up "How about Uncle Tenebrous?" and she was struck speechless for the moment.

"We'll see," she finally said after a deep breath.

* * *

Despite wanting neither the Jedi nor the Sith in Hego's future, Tema thought it only followed to train him in Force-usage regardless, for reasons she couldn't explain. So she began that very day, after lunch, with squashes and cabbages from the neighboring produce market.

"Alright, now, Hego, concentrate on this squash." Tema held an impressively patterned specimen, shaped like an acorn but orange and cream striped with blue-green and tan dots. "Feel the connection between you and it."

Either her son was not particularly interested or she was lacking in expressing the procedure in a teaching-appropriate manner, because Hego, rather than sit calmly, walked the few steps between them and poked the toughened rind of the squash with one finger. He then grinned and said "I feel the connection, Mama!"

Maybe that was too hard. Perhaps Force-sight would be easier to teach. She took him out into the shady little courtyard, lushly carpeted in deep grass and clover sprinkled with yellow and purple flowers, and brought along her three very small cabbages and a scarf, which she tied securely around Hego's eyes.

"Now we're gonna play catch, sweetheart." She gently tossed a cabbage towards him, only for him to step aside and it fall in the grass. "You're supposed to catch it, silly," she gently chided.

She threw the second one, a beautiful purpley red she could probably use later for a science demonstration of sorts that would greatly amuse him. Hego reached out, but the second cabbage only hit his hand and fell into the grass; he had failed to grasp it. "Cabbages aren't very bouncy, Mama," he said.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, wondering if he was already watching them in the Force. She honestly wasn't sure how good he was at ball games normally, at fast hand-eye coordination, because they generally didn't do that back on icy Mygeeto. 

"I could hear it, of course. Are you going to throw the other one?"

"Oh. Yes," she said after a pause, and threw it. The same thing happened as with the previous one, and she wondered whether the cabbages, though quite small, were too large for Hego's hands. This was going to take a long time. 

"Maybe we should try again later, hmm?" she suggested, and Hego immediately moved to untie the blindfold.

* * *

That afternoon, Tema decided to go ahead with the science demo, as an educational opportunity even if it wasn't Force related. She left Hego to play quietly in the adjacent room and attacked the cabbage with a knife. Unfortunately she was not very used to cooking and it proved slightly harder than anticipated to cut open the cabbage. In the process she knocked it off the counter and the cabbage-knife amalgam, blade thankfully all but buried in the vegetable flesh, fell on her foot.

Hego came scampering in. "Are you alright, mama? Can I help?"

"My foot is going to be a bit sore," she answered with forbearance, "and you can probably help in a few minutes, but not just now."

Regretfully, she hadn't accounted for her child's relentless curiosity, and as he dripped cabbage juice into leavening soda and citrus juice and watched the colors with wide eyes, she couldn't answer all of his whys. "We'll look it up on the holonet," she said, but then she really wasn't sure how to explain to a four year old the scientific jargon she only half-understood. 

He ate a large portion of the leftover cabbage that she dressed as a slaw, which probably wasn't wholly nutritionally sound as the sole constituent of a meal, but well... they'd get used to doing without a kitchen droid, and she'd serve something different tomorrow...

* * *

Hego found a pocket microscope and a very slimy pond when she tried to bring him along to a larger market with a wider variety of items. The pond, naturally, was not for sale, but like so many children he was entranced by the green coloration of the water, and perhaps the tiny frogs that kept leaping explosively out of the taller plants surrounding the water. Tema was the opposite of enthused about the matter. Good (staid) Muuns did not attempt to play with...with algae!

Then again, perhaps she had a small scientist on her hands. "Can we try this?" he begged, poking his nose into a rack of "sea-vegetable" flakes as she shopped the selection of uncooked noodles on the next shelf.

"Perhaps," Tema allowed, uncertain. She had never consumed seaweed, apparently what this was. But she _had_ removed him from his excellent, advantaged home; perhaps she should indulge his curiosity. 

Though it did not involve the seaweed, it was only when he disappeared for a couple of minutes and showed up again with his drink cup full of slimy pond water, drips down his front and mud on his knees, that she realized her small son had enacted a scheme. It went something like this: convince Mama you're thirsty and need to get a drink at the market, consume all of it rapidly, and slip off to get some stuff from the pond.

He stared at the pond water under the microscope for quite some time, but she couldn't help him make sense of it, so for the time being they set the instrument aside.

* * *

She tried some more training, when she found soft fruits at the market, smaller and more appropriate for Hego's small hands. Once more blinded by her scarf, this time he managed to catch most of them (only narrowly most, but almost all of those he missed he did reach for). 

The Jedi taught children to fight from a young age, didn't they? And they soundly disliked all other force users. Perhaps she ought to start training Hego in the Force-users weapon, even though lightsabers came with nearly all of the typical disadvantages of physical fights and swords.

They wouldn't go to harvest crystals--that could get them flagged by the Jedi. Instead... what about slowly growing them, like sugar crystal candy?

It would surely take time, but she made a batch of said candy jars, and started looking up crystal growing procedures after Hego was in bed at night or for his afternoon nap. 

He enjoyed crunching the first small sugar crystals she removed, although the sweets made him rather hyper afterward. Only after running after him for half an hour did it occur to her that they could begin practicing lightsaber technique. It was not as kind as the Jedi did (at least, based on what Nome had researched) to practice with twigs, but they were not large enough to seriously injure him, and a few bruises would serve as a lesson to respect a weapon.

She got him to approximate two stances, and more or less follow her in a basic kata, but this too, this would take much time. Perhaps by the time they had crystals completed he would be ready for...a practice fight? 

Training children in martial arts was apt to take years, with their changing size and still developing coordination. She had taken several years to learn what she knew of lightsaber fighting, which wasn't a great deal. (She was not a proper Apprentice, so there was no reason for her to have capabilities fit to challenge her matter, nor had there been cause for her to one day pass the skills on.) The crystals they needed would grow on the scale of months, though, or at least she thought so.

* * *

She gave in and commed Caar after the first month, anonymizing their location but willing to talk to him. Unfortunately, the call was poorly timed, as it proved to be the middle of the night at their former home on Mygeeto. So instead she checked her other messages.

Uun'iaq sent a text-mail, wishing them luck and hoping their new home was satisfactory. She reported that most of the measures Tema and she had put into place had prevented her being followed, but also, unfortunately, that she had reason to suspect Nome had visited the math conference and therefore might suspect something...

Master TaGree sent along notice that he'd opened the account for her, and the bank also sent along a welcoming announcement. Part of it wasn't in Basic, and she'd already had the unnerving news of Nome's presence and missed Caar. 

She would probably need to bring in work, here, soon, both to smooth neighborhood relations, and to stop depleting their funds. Maybe it was a good time to go talk to someone? It was true that Hego was only four and she didn't have a droid, nor a trusted neighbor, to leave him with, but there was only so much mischief he could get into in a brief time period, surely?

But no. She couldn't just go leaving her small son alone... And then their landlord showed up at the door, insisting she come discuss some urgent matter at his own apartment next door. Hego _was_ asleep; she had planned to wake him up if she had actually reached Caar. And she would barely be further away than she could be in their actual rooms...

* * *

Rugess Nome had, in fact, noticed that a particular one of his associates--or even acolytes, given Bane's system--was also at MRIMS. He had even noticed that she had his future apprentice with her, that she had associated with Uun'iaq [surname only rarely transliterated into Basic, and supposedly usually pronounced wrong if you hadn't spent months on Utapau], and that she had left Alderaan but not headed for Mygeeto. 

What she hadn't counted on, her Force education at his hands having concentrated naturally on more practical and less mystical matters, was that the beginnings of his bond with Hego and Force-enhanced intuition and simply some observations about how she had left all had led him to Thalassia. (Well. After Dantooine and half-a dozen other flybys that hadn't yielded anything.) And after three long days of searching prior corresponding to planetary records of ships that had remained here for an appropriate time, he could sense Hego nearby.

What _he_ didn't understand was why she had done this and what her intentions were. Oh, Muuns had seemed more sensible than most beings, but he had never fully understood societies where familial units had primacy and priority. He had surmised that it was not a mere holiday trip, what with all the precautions she had taken, but he had no idea what Tema was thinking doing this.

None of this was clarified by indistinctly hearing Hego's voice behind the door (much like many others on the planet) when he rang the doorbell.

"Can you unlatch the door and let me in?" he said loudly, hoping the small Muun would understand.

"IT'S LOCKED!" Hego yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Can you unlock it?" Tenebrous asked, considering his options. He might well be able to coax the locking mechanism with the Force.

"NO!"

With a look of intent concentration but no incriminating picks, improvised or otherwise, Rugess Nome undid the lock on the door of the apartment holding little Hego Damask.

"Uncle Tenebrous!" Hego exclaimed, and threw his arms around the Bith's knees, unable to reach any higher than that.

"Hello, Hego," Nome greeted his intended apprentice. "Is your mother around?" For, looking around, he saw neither adult nor droid.

"Don't know," the child said obliviously. "Can we have a tea party for breakfast?"

"Ahh. Alright. That would be acceptable." Had Tema succumbed to drugs or something? Was she resorting to dangerous types of work, all to...to what? Escape from Caar? Evade him? For what reason?

Hego indicated the rug near a low table in what appeared to be an area for sitting around together. "Sit down, Uncle Tenebrous," he commanded imperiously.

The Sith obediently sat down cross-legged on the carpet. Hego went into the kitchen and returned only a few minutes later with a cucumber, a brussels sprout, a plate of slices of bread, and a jar of mustard. The small Muun picked up a sort of soft anthropomorphic rabbit figure from the settee, and positioned it at a third place around the table. He then added small plastic toy cups to the table and said thoughtfully "Actually, I don't know how to make tea food." 

Rugess gamely pretended to take a drink from the cup in front of him and watched, surprised, as Hego said "Now, Laplace, show Uncle Tenebrous how good you are at catching little baby cabbages" and tossed the sprout towards the rabbit. To the Sith's astonishment, Hego stopped the sprout with the Force just as it reached his toy figure, and then let it rest in the toy's lap, displaying surprising control for such a young child.

"Have a sandwich, Uncle Tenebrous, Laplace?" Hego invited then, passing the platter of bread. Feeling obliged to try it, he took one and found it to be reasonably good bread at least. Hego tore off a piece of a different slice and popped it into his mouth. 

"Hego--" a panicked voice suddenly intruded, and Rugess turned around to find Tema (looking surprised and even scared, but not addled by substances or otherwise damaged) standing in the doorway. "Rugess," she choked out, acknowledging him. 

"Mama, Uncle Tenebrous came to visit and we're having a tea party for breakfast!" Hego announced.

* * *

It had not occurred to Caar Damask that his family members might be in any sort of trouble, even _after_ the holocomm informed him he'd missed a call from Tema in the middle of the night. But, if she was willing to communicate, then... he wouldn't push the matter. He'd wait for another call, hope that he'd see the wife and son he wouldn't admit aloud that he missed.

* * *

Tema's only difficulty in dealing with the landlord had been that she wanted to keep talking and tell the Muun about her many grandchildren, precisely when she needed to get back to Hego.

The last thing she expected to come home to was Rugess Nome sitting on her living room floor and eating sliced bread with her son.

"Oh, you are?" she responded weakly to Hego's announcement. And then she gathered up all the courage that had let the two of them get here and asked, "Can I talk to Uncle Tenebrous for a few minutes, my sweet boy?"

"If you hafta," Hego said, and hugged his little stuffed rabbit, Laplace, a recent adoption.

She pulled the Bith into the kitchen once he got to his feet. But before she could make any demands, he asked, in a disapproving tone, "Why? Why did you bring the boy--Hego here? Have things gone awry with your husband?"

He was... her friend. And slightly hard to be angry at because of that, because he was showing concern, in his stiff way. "No--no, Caar was willing to give him to the Jedi, but it's not altogether bad."

"The Jedi showing an interest?" She could tell that that put a twist in his thoughts.

"Not specifically in Hego, probably, but he'd be taken, you know it. And I don't want him taken, not now."

"Tema--but we agreed?"

She glared at her friend, because her son was, in fact, more important than their friendship. "I want to raise him. He loves you, you know that? As foolish as that is? I guess--I guess you can ask him when he's grown, if he wants to join you. But I'll tell him about Sith tutelage. And I won't raise him to be cruel. 

"He's my _son,_ Tenebrous," she looked away from the Bith's face. "I want him to choose, to be permitted the choice."

There was a pause, and then Nome said, suspiciously, "He _loves_ me?"

"As much as Caar," she flung the words at him, even though they, too, seemed foolish. "You pay attention to him, and you don't just regard him as a mystery, or, apparently, reject his requests to play."

"Hmph," grunted the Sith thoughtfully. "You will give me the opportunity to invite him, you say. And he is young yet. I could still entertain the notion of another apprentice..."

Surely that was bait, but she wasn't going to be baited. Furthermore, he was being stubborn, and to his purposes was perfectly right to make alternate plans. "Alright, you found us. You can visit us. As I said, I'm not raising him to be cruel, but he likes you."

"Yes, he does," Tenebrous agreed quietly, and perhaps also to the earlier statement that had prompted his question. "And you _are_ his mother."

"Mama," Hego called from the living room, "Can Uncle Tenebrous stay with us for a few days?"

Nome sighed, and spoke loudly towards Hego. "I have something else to do this afternoon, but I can come back and visit over the next few days."

He was yielding. That was difficult to believe.

Hego popped in and put one arm around his mother's knee and stretched to reach Nome, who stepped closer to allow it, with the other. "Thank you, Mama, thank you, Uncle Tenebrous!"

And both of them, without consultation, reached down to return the affection by holding the boy's shoulders. The embrace lasted a good minute, ages in four-year-old time, and then Hego said "I've got something to show you!" and broke away.

Rugess put a hand on her shoulder as Hego went to fetch some toy. "Tema, you were always a bit stubborn. But my own master--she thought there was something worthy of study in the light, useful in the relationships beings have with each other. Never in the ways of the Jedi, but there are things they most certainly do not know. They do not even permit... 'love.' Perhaps this can be a strength."

And, while this was a good thing to hear, it opened up even more mysteries. She had never known (or perhaps only never noticed) that Tenebrous's _Master_ and predecessor had been a woman, and one verging on heretical if this was to be believed.

And it was complicated, this, going against her brother-friend and having him bend to her own way in the same thing, allowing Hego a relationship with his potential Sith master but denying him certainty in waiting for that... But maybe it could be good for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Learn Statistics on Malastare! is inspired by the existent Mathematics in Moscow program.  which sounds like something I would be interested in, but in the current political climes and with my mental health the way it is... I very much doubt I'll seriously consider applying
> 
> I found Thalassia on a map of the GFFA that I hunted up online. Wookieepedia doesn't give many details, so if any canon descriptions are given, this may well contradict them...


End file.
